It's a version of the 43mm Limited that Pentax produced in Leica-M mount, hence it wouldn't be much use to most folk on here. It comes with its own finder (43mm finders aren't a common length!) and was for the Japaese market only. They still pop up new from time-to-time so it may well still be in production.

Whilst it may appear expensive, compared to some genuine Leica glass...

FOR SALE - REVISED PRICE!!

Samsung 12-24mm f4 D-Xenon lens

£350 + p&p at cost (depending on location and service required).

Complete with box and all original paperwork - hardly ever used - absolutely like new.

This lens actually belongs to a friend of mine who bought it along with a GX20 and some other lenses around four months ago. He's decided he's not that bothered about ultra wide lenses (and he's just bought a Bigma) and wants to sell this to ease the cashflow.

I can get photos if need be but not until tomorrow night. But trust me, it looks like a new boxed lens.

First one to PM me with a commitment to buy at the asking price will be passed my friend's details and you can sort out the fine details about postage and payment between you. He's based in Aylesbury (UK) for anyone thinking of collecting in person.

If I didn't already have the Pentax version I'd buy it!

Legend has it we've never been seen in the same room...

John beat me to it once again...

A bigger tripod will help (the heavier they are the sturdier they are as a rule) but you can make the most of what you have by using a remote control and / or the timer function. The timer means that the camera is locking up the mirror before the shutter fires (reduces vibration) and a remote would mean you don't have to physically touch the camera (again reduces vibration).

Also don't be afraid to try a smaller aperture like f11 or f16 - it's a stationary subject and you don't need a lightning-quick exposure as you're using a tripod. While f8 is great for getting large depths of field at regular working distances it can often be too narrow when you're working very close to the subject.

While you're writing your Christmas list you might want to ask Santa for an angle finder too - save having to contort yourself to see what you're doing.

I really liked your original shot so good luck with Take 2.

In this instance you do need a faster lens. Take this as a hypothetical situation:

It's a typical, overcast autumn day and you want to take a photo. Your camera (set at 400 ISO for the sake of argument) meters the scene and decides it needs 1/125 of a second at f/5.6 in order to have enough light to capture it. To speed up the shutter you need to open up the aperture; each time you move up one whole stop you double the amount of light let through the lens and you can then halve the the shutter speed to compensate.

So the same amount of light would be let through at:

1/125 @ f5.6
1/250 (halve amount of light coming in) @ f4 (double amount of light coming in)
1/500 (halve amount of light coming in) @ f2.8 (double amount of light coming in)
1/1000 (halve amount of light coming in) @ f2 (double amount of light coming in)
1/2000 (halve amount of light coming in) @ f1.4 (double amount of light coming in)
1/4000 (halve amount of light coming in) @ f1 (double amount of light coming in)

Fast lenses can be good for making the most of what you have, but at some point you'll run up against a brick wall and you'll need to get the light from somewhere else.

You can raise the sensitivity (ISO) but take the downside of noisier pictures. If you were using a zoom with a max aperture of f5.6 (so nowhere further to go in the scenario above) then you could perform a similar trick as before; now 1/125 second at f5.6 and ISO400 becomes 1/250 @ ISO800, 1/500 @ ISO1600 (limit of the K10D) and 1/1000 @ ISO3200.

Alternatively, you can get your extra light from an external source like a flash unit (but don't rule out just switching on lights in a room for starters ). If using flash then you can pretty much just choose your aperture and fire away - as others have said, the effective shutter speed will always be that of the flash itself - counted in milliseconds and capable of freezing pretty much anything! The downside of flash is its lack of spontaneity - good lighting takes time, skill and practice to put together (which I personally don't have in abundance).

Is that as clear as mud?

As you'll be using a reversing ring then the mount on the lens won't matter, so you could save a bit of money by going for lenses that fit in the "good-but-generally-unwanted" camp. Two candidates spring to mind with 49mm filter sizes.

The first would be the Helios 44-4. A russian built 58mm f2 lens that was the "kit" lens for generations of Zenit cameras - hence they're easy to find and rarely cost more than £3-£4. Based on a pre-war Zeiss Biotar design they're extremely sharp and built like the Russian T35 tanks they were mostly recycled from. Very early versions were manual, the latest versions were/are auto but can easily be converted to manual operation in under 2 minutes. These will normally be M42 mount so with an adaptor you can turn it round and use it as a fast portrait lens (warning: the adaptor will cost approximately 5 times more than the lens! ).

The second (and I think even better) option would be a Zeiss (CZJ) Flektogon 35/f2.4. These can actually fetch quite high prices in M42 mount (not really suprising as they're excellent lenses even by modern standards), however, a fair number were also built using the obsolete Practika B Mount - which nobody wants! The B-Mount versions therefore are harder to find but fetch peanuts when they do come along, certainly worth keeping an eye out for.

If you want to keep your kit all-Pentax then the M50/f1.7 is an astonishingly sharp lens, has a 49mm filter ring, a flatter field of focus then the f1.4's and you can pick up mint ones for around £10-£15. It even has a K-mount so if you want to use it the "right" way round then there's no adaptor required!

If you want to pay more money then there is an almost limitless list of lenses that would do the job - as you've already noticed the ones with a shorter focal length will give you greater magnifications. Happy shopping!

I'd hazard a guess that if the internal temperature goes above a (factory) preset limit then the camera will switch itself off to try and prevent any damage. Not had the bottle to try this out with the K10D and an oven yet though...

If you're taking a picture of a kingfisher or an eagle then the chances are you'll be outside in bright daylight - have a look at all the animal "action" shots and you'll notice very few are taken in anything other than direct sun.

As others have said, to freeze action you need the fastest shutter speed you can muster. The problem is that you also need X-amount of light to make a picture.

If your shutter's going to be open for an incredibly brief time you need to increase the light some other way. You can go for a very large aperture (but suffer with a very thin depth of field), you can increase the ISO rating (but suffer with increased noise) or you can add your own intense light to the scene (that's where flash comes in).

For indoor shots then flash is really the way to go. A 50/1.4 would be a good general investment (and fun to use) but I think you may get the results you want by buying a flash that can be used off-camera - your K10D can remotely control the Pentax AF360FGZ and AF540FGZ flashes as well as some third party models. This way you can get the light closer to the subject and it won't look as "flat" as on-camera flash. But that's a whole other topic entirely...

Come on everybody, where are all the entries? I can't believe there's only two of us on here that stop for lunch...